In a whole fruit juice extractor such as disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,970,861; 5,992,311; 5,996,485; and 6,568,319, the disclosures which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety, the motion of the extractor cups and the orifice tubes received within the strainer tubes are each controlled by mechanical cams. Although the motions are separate, they are synchronized by having the cams located on a single camshaft. In this type of juice extractor, a drive cam (or cup cam) engages cam followers located on a cup support member, i.e., a cup beam.
These drive cams in particular experience very high loads. Because of the large displacement required for the moveable extractor cups, the pressure angle of the drive cams is very high, causing considerable side loading on the juice extractor machine. Because the speed of the commercial juice extractor machine has increased over the years, problems associated with this type of loading have only increased throughout the years.
These increased forces associated with this drive cam movement and the side loading create considerable movement in the juice extractor machine. Although most juice extractor machines are well-anchored to a structural platform, the loading can create cracking and fatigue of machine components and cause excessive vibration in the extractor frame and its platform.